Hello everyone and welcome to Episode Sixty Eight!  Here we are in mid-August and I hope all of you remain safe and healthy out there. I’ve been working on re-siding and painting my garage all week, and it feels good to scrub the paint from my hands and strap into the podcasting chair for a bit.

Now before we get to the show notes portion of the show notes, I want to take a minute to thank all of the show’s patrons, including our newest Patreon supporters, Wes Redridge, and Lawrence Erickson!  Thank you so much, Wes and Lawrence!  And as always, a big thank you to all of the show’s supporters – there are costs associated with running any entertainment channel and I am grateful to all of you for keeping this little boat afloat.  And if you’re out there listening and you would like to kick in a few bucks, it’s easy to do, you simply go to the So Much Pingle Patreon page. You can support the show for as little as three bucks a month – less than a fancy cup of coffee! You can also support the show via one-time contributions via PayPal or Venmo (please contact me via email to [email protected]).

Excellent photo courtesy of Ben Revell.

Episode 68 happens to be another installment of Herp Science Sunday with my pal Dr. Alex Krohn and features Coen Hird, a doctoral candidate from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. This episode came about because Alex saw a tweet from Coen about a paper that he co-authored, concerning a certain species of pobblebonk, in this case the Northern Banjo Frog, Limnodynastes terrareginae.  Love that name, pobblebonk, and there are more than one species of frogs under the pobblebonk umbrella.  So anyway, Alex pings me right away about this paper as a great candidate for Herp Science Sunday, and Coen was keen to come on the show, so here we are.  The title of the paper is:

"The role of environmental calcium in the extreme acid tolerance of northern banjo frog (Limnodynastes terraereginae) larvae"

I've added a link so that you can click on the title and get access. And as always, you can drop me a note and I will send you a PDF copy of the paper.

Also – the teaser at the beginning of the show is a short clip of some pobblebonks calling, and the clip comes from some recordings I purchased from a company called Wild Ambience. Long story short, I got 45 minutes of pobblebonks and cool birds and other nature sounds for about 8 bucks U.S.  So THIS is an unsolicited and yet much deserved plug from me – check out wildambience and maybe you’ll hear something you like.

Thank you Alex and Coen!  That was a fun show.  And thanks for listening everyone! And as always, please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and please take time to rate the show on your podcast platform! The show email is [email protected], and there’s also a So Much Pingle group on Facebook, for discussion, comments, feedback, suggestions, herp confessions,, tips for herping better, etc.

Cheers! Mike